


Emerald, Jade, and Virgin Green

by WretchedArtifact



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Altar Sex, F/F, First Time, Fluff, Loss of Virginity, Magic Made Them Do It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21744487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WretchedArtifact/pseuds/WretchedArtifact
Summary: First Beau watched as a wave of invisible energy swept Jester up off her feet and deposited her on the jade altar, trapping her in its magical confines as the doorway to the chamber filled with rubble.  Then, when the dust cleared, Beau realized that she was the only other person in the room with Jester, while all the people with actual magical ability were stuck on the other side of the rock.And now Caleb was telling her this elaborate, fifteen-foot-tall enchanted altar had been made by some kind of wizardly pervert.  Just fucking perfect.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 13
Kudos: 464
Collections: Writing Rainbow Green





	Emerald, Jade, and Virgin Green

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infernal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernal/gifts).



> Written for the _Writing Rainbow: Green_ flash exchange! I hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> (Potential content warning: Frumpkin takes the form of a snake in this fic.)

The backdrop of the altar stood fifteen feet high against the west wall of the chamber. It was exquisitely crafted: pillars of polished green marble connected by a web of silver filigree, studded with small gemstones that gleamed in the low torchlight. At its base, the altar itself was a pedestal made of jade; the smooth, smoky-green surface was just big enough to hold a single humanoid figure.

And it _was_ holding a humanoid figure. Lying supine on the altar, her blue hair haloed around her head, Jester was yanking her hands against some enchantment that had pinned them to the stone. "Beau!" she yelled across the room. "I'm _bored."_

"I know, I'm sorry," Beau yelled back. "Frumpkin can only see, like, two letters at a time."

Beau lifted her hand higher. There was a rusty-colored garter snake coiled around her wrist and fingers, and she was slowly showing it a long phrase that had been carved along the top of the east wall. In her mind, she heard the occasional Zemnian-tinted mutter: _"higher"_ or " _lower"_ or _"go back_." Whenever she heard it, she moved her arm accordingly. Whoever had carved the phrase was a wordy bastard, and Beau's arm was starting to ache, but she didn't speak whatever the fuck language it was, so this was all she was good for. Magical snake babysitter.

 _"Ughhhhh."_ Across the room, Beau heard Jester batter the heels of her boots against the altar. "Tell Caleb to hurry up."

In Beau's mind, she heard: "Tell Jester I can hear her just fine through Frumpkin, she doesn't need an intermediary."

Make that a magical snake babysitter _and_ Caleb's ventriloquist dummy. "Seriously, can you read this any faster?" Beau asked Caleb. "That altar is giving me the fuckin' creeps."

"Tell Caleb it's _warm_ ," Jester yelled.

"He can already hear you through Frumpkin!"

"Caleb, it's _warm_ ," Jester said. "It feels like I'm lying on a big stone tongue _._ It's gross."

Beau heard Caleb curse under his breath in Zemnian. "Whoever enchanted the altar, _they_ are gross," he said. "So far this message has been very...suggestive."

"Suggestive how?"

"You know. _Suggestive_." His voice in her head seemed to drop to a low murmur. " _Sexual_ in nature."

Beau's face contorted instinctively. She _really_ hadn't liked the vibe of the altar when they came in the room. As soon as she and Jester stepped inside the chamber and saw it, she had grabbed Jester's wrist and tried to pull her away, but by then it was too late. A wave of invisible energy had swept Jester up off her feet and deposited her on the jade pedestal, and a hidden rockfall in the ceiling had choked the doorway with rubble. Of-fucking- _course_ Beau would be the one stuck in here while all the people with useful magic were on the other side of the rock. It was pure dumb luck that there had been a tiny gap between the edge of the chamber and the rubble, just big enough for Frumpkin's snake form and Caleb's Message spell to get through.

And now Caleb was telling her this elaborate, fifteen-foot-tall enchanted altar had been made by some kind of wizardly pervert. "What does the message _suggest_ we do?" she asked.

"I'll only be guessing until I read the whole thing," Caleb said. "So be quiet and let me concentrate."

Beau gritted her teeth and propped up her raised arm with her other hand. She slowly guided Frumpkin's bobbing snake head along the full length of the wall, while across the room Jester kicked out a desultory rhythm against the altar with her heels. "It's too bad this thing is probably evil," Jester said. "It's very pretty. I think these are real emeralds."

Beau looked over, and Jester pointed the toe of her boot at one of the gems inset in the web of silver filigree. A wave of guilt washed through Beau, because just then the thought rose into her head that _Jester_ looked very pretty, with one leg lifted and pointed like a dancer, and the cloth of her dress and cloak draped artistically over the altar like she was posing for a painting. Beau often had idle thoughts about how pretty Jester looked, but having those thoughts _now_ made her feel like just as much of a creep as whoever built the altar in the first place. Beau looked back toward the carving on the wall, her face heating up.

Finally, Frumpkin took in the last few letters, and Beau lowered her hand so Frumpkin's beady little snake eyes were aimed at her. "So?" she asked.

She heard a hemming note in Caleb's voice. "Maybe we should just focus on clearing these rocks from the doorway, first."

Beau rolled her eyes. "Tell me what the fuck we're dealing with, Caleb."

She heard the huff of Caleb's breath, and she could practically picture the squinched-up face he'd be making on the other side of the rock. "Assuming the message is not just someone's smut fiction," he said, "then the altar is meant to harvest the energy of virgins."

Beau almost dropped Frumpkin. _"What?"_

"What? What's he saying?" Jester called.

"Hold on!" Beau told her, then moved as close to the wall as possible and lowered her voice. "What does that even mean?" she asked Caleb.

"It means--" He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "The altar traps people who are virgins, and it doesn't let them go until they're _not,_ anymore. And then it uses the energy to do something...dreadful but non-specific."

The unease that had been growing in Beau's stomach for the last half-hour now turned into a hollow pit. "Ugh, for _fuck's sake_ ," she said.

"Yes, that's a good way of putting it," Caleb said.

"So the altar traps people, but how does...it...happen? Like, who's supposed to do...it?"

"I assume it's supposed to be the pervert who created the altar in the first place," Caleb said. "But from the look of the other rooms, they must be long dead."

Now Beau was the one making a squinched-up face. "Perhaps if we get the door open," Caleb said, "we can find a way to free Jester that doesn't involve...it."

Beau glanced back at Jester, who was craning her neck and staring at Beau with intense curiosity on her face. Beau looked at Frumpkin again. "I have to tell her what the message says," she said.

"Ahhhh--" Caleb's voice pitched up a little. "Maybe that's not--"

"I _have_ to tell her _,"_ Beau said, irritated. "She's the one in danger. She has to know what's going on. Like, what if you're wrong, and the fuckin' altar comes to life and starts...doing things? She even said it felt like a tongue!"

Caleb groaned. "Fine," he said. "You tell her, but we're going to start trying to shift the rock on this side."

"Yeah. All right."

The inside of Beau's head turned silent, and Beau slipped Frumpkin's coiled form into one of her pockets and turned around. Jester still had her neck uncomfortably lifted off the pedestal. "Well?" she called across the room. "What does it want, blood or something? Do I have to cut off a finger?"

She sounded relatively cheerful for someone who'd been trapped on a creepy altar for half an hour. "That'd be pretty badass, right?" Beau said, trying to match Jester's cheerfulness, but it came out kinda weak instead. She came over to the pedestal, and was struck by how intensely _weird_ it was to be standing while Jester was lying down in front of her, like she was observing Jester on her deathbed.

Jester looked closely at Beau's face. "You look so serious," she said, and the lightness in her tone dimmed, just a little. "What was the message on the wall? Was it bad?"

"It's...not great," Beau said. "I mean, it could be worse, but it's kind of a...dick move, as far as magical enchanted altars go."

Jester looked up at her, expectant, and with just the slightest hint of trepidation behind her eyes. Beau cleared her throat. "The message, was, uh...smutty."

The trepidation was instantly replaced with disbelief. "Smutty?" Jester repeated.

"Yeah," Beau said. "It said something like, the altar was built to harvest the energy of virgins."

"Oh." Jester's brow furrowed deeply. "Huh. It said _virgins?"_

"I think so, yeah."

"Oh." Now Jester's brow was furrowed so deeply that she was basically making the same squinched-up face that Beau had. "That's--that's really weird, actually. Maybe Caleb translated it wrong, 'cuz I don't know why it would be keeping me here, in that case, if that was what it said."

Jester wasn't always the most accomplished liar: her voice tended to go high and rapid when she was fibbing. Like it was doing right now. Honestly, Beau had suspected for a while that Jester wasn't as sexually experienced as she sometimes insinuated--but it's not like it was any of Beau's fucking business. "Yeah, maybe Caleb screwed it up," Beau agreed. "And anyway, they're going to try and clear the rock, and once they get inside, there's probably a spell or something they can use to turn the altar off, right?"

"Right!" Jester said, a redoubled chipperness in her voice. "I'm sure they'll be here in no time!"

The two of them paused, listening carefully for the muffled sound of rocks being moved. The chamber was extremely quiet. "Well..." Jester said after a minute. "If the rocks are really heavy, maybe it'll take them awhile."

After another few minutes of silence, Beau felt a stirring in her pocket. She reached in and felt Frumpkin coil around her hand again. She pulled him out and looked into his beady eyes. "How's it going on your side?" she asked Caleb.

"Poorly," he said in her head. "Yasha can't get the larger rocks to budge. I think if I summon my earthen cat's paw, I can make some headway, but I'll need to rest for an hour before I can cast it."

Beau's stomach sank. "An _hour_?"

"What's he saying?" Jester asked.

"Here, you tell her," Beau said to Caleb, turning her hand so Frumpkin's eyes were facing Jester. "She's the one who should be making the decisions here, anyway."

Caleb's voice vanished from her head, and after a moment Jester got an alert look on her face. "Hi Caleb," she said, in that light, sing-songy tone she always used when she cast Sending. It was the same tone she used in the mornings sometimes, when she and Beau were sharing a room-- _Hi Beau! It's morning!--_ and the sweetness in it made Beau's heart do an involuntary flip in her chest. Jester listened intently for a minute, then said, "No, you're right, that's probably the best thing to do. An hour's not that long." Her eyes flicked up to Beau, then back down again. "Um, Caleb? Do you think maybe there's a chance that you didn't translate the message right? Only I don't know if some of the words it used...fit me, you know?"

Beau braced herself for Caleb to argue over his translation, but the way Jester's expression immediately perked up told her that Caleb was totally willing to lie through his teeth to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. "Yeah, it _is_ pretty dark in here," Jester agreed, her voice gaining confidence. "I bet it probably means something else, too. Well, Beau and I will just wait for you to be ready, okay?"

Beau was tempted to turn Frumpkin back to face her so she could mouth _coward_ at Caleb, but Frumpkin slithered down her wrist and dropped back into her pocket with a magically propelled thump. Beau looked at Jester, whose expression had turned cheerful again. "Ugh, this is going to be so boring," Jester said. "It's too bad Yasha has my copy of _Tusk Love_ , this would be the perfect time to read it." Then she gasped. "Beau, doesn't this feel just like a scene from _Tusk Love?_ Just imagine if Guinevere was trapped on an altar like this, and Oskar had to break through the rubble and rescue her with true love's kiss."

 _More like true love's dick,_ Beau thought, but didn't say out loud. "This would definitely be less gross if it were happening in a book," she said.

Jester tipped her head back dreamily, and Beau started pacing slightly, keeping a few feet of distance between herself and the jade pedestal. It had been bad enough waiting the half hour for Caleb to change Frumpkin to a snake and cast Comprehend Languages and translate the message, but at least as a magic snake babysitter she'd had something to do. Now she was faced with an hour of nothing to do but pace around and feel on edge. Jester observed her for a little while before offering, "You know, if I moved my legs, you could probably come sit up here with me."

"I better not," Beau said. "I'm kinda worried that if I get too close, it'll grab me too."

Jester gave a snorting laugh. "Well, we definitely know that _you're_ not a virgin, Beau."

That was extremely true, but: "What makes you say that?" Beau said, feeling kind of contrary. "Maybe I've been overexaggerating my exploits."

"Don't you remember?" Jester said. "That time you thought Caleb's hut blocked out sound, and you and Keg went upstairs and had sex, and everybody downstairs could hear everything you were doing because _ac-tually_ you can hear through it?"

Beau had managed to successfully block that from her memory until now. "Fuck," she said, her cheeks getting hot.

Jester grinned at her. "So, was it nice?"

"With Keg?" _Nice_ seemed like a weird word for it: it had been kind of exhaustedly celebratory, a relief. "I mean, I guess so."

Jester's expression turned a little thoughtful. "My mom only ever had men for clients," she said. "I don't really know what it's like when girls are together. What do you do?"

Somehow this conversation had gone from embarrassing to Jester to _extremely_ embarrassing for Beau. Beau opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, she felt a weight disappear from her pocket. She reached into it and felt around: Frumpkin had vanished out of existence.

Oh. She'd bet a hundred gold Caleb had dipped into Frumpkin's consciousness to check on them, heard where the conversation was going, and fled in a screaming panic. "Uh," Beau said, smoothing her pocket flat. "You just, uh...make do with what you have, I guess. Like when Oskar and Guinevere were in that rowboat together."

"When they just used their hands?"

"Yeah." Beau hoped the low light was concealing just how flushed her face must be. "Just hands and mouths can be pretty great, if you know how to use 'em."

She heard Jester tap her heel contemplatively against the altar a few times. "But if you're with a girl, what part makes you lose your virginity?" she asked.

It honestly wasn't something Beau had ever contemplated. "I don't know," she said. "I mean, what even _is_ virginity, right? It's, like, a social construct."

"Exactly!" Jester said, more vehemently than Beau was expecting. "People don't even mean the same thing when they talk about it! Maybe you think you've done something, but then someone else says it doesn't count. Maybe--" Her face screwed up into an indignant little pout. "Maybe that's why this stupid altar trapped me. It's not counting the things I've already done."

A wave of affection washed through Beau, strong enough that it made her heart hurt a little. She didn't know why it was so important to Jester that no one see her as inexperienced, but it was clearly a sore spot with her. "Yeah, maybe that's it," Beau said, hoping she was a better liar than Jester was. "How would some random wizard who's been dead half a century even know who's a virgin, anyway?"

"Right?" Jester lifted one leg and gave the web of silver filigree against the wall a brisk sideways kick. Beau startled at the loud sound, and the backdrop of the altar seemed to shake from the sudden vibration, the embedded emeralds winking and flashing in the low light.

Then a low, buzzing hum seemed to fill the chamber. "Oh no," Jester said, shrinking back a little on the pedestal. "Did I--?

The very top of the altar, formerly wreathed in shadow, suddenly lit up with an eerie, vibrant green glow. There was a roughly-hewn, fist-sized emerald embedded into a little alcove at the top, and the light it was giving off was clearly arcane in nature. "Oh _shit_ ," Beau said, and instinctively she moved forward, grabbing Jester's arms and pulling to see if she could free her.

Instead, the world suddenly inverted around Beau: vertical and horizontal abruptly swapped places in her brain, and she felt her head go woozy. Her shoulder and hip hit something warm and hard, and then Jester's face was very close to hers, her expression a mix of aggravation and concern. "Beau!" Jester said, too loudly for how close her face was. "Are you okay? Beau!"

"I'm--" Beau said, disoriented. She propped herself up on her elbow. Oh fuck, she was _on the pedestal._ The jade was smooth and hard and creepily warm against her skin, and Jester was lying next to her, propped on her side, her hands reaching for Beau. But weren't her hands trapped before--?

"Beau, I'm so sorry!" Jester said, and she reached out and grabbed Beau into a sudden hug. "I think I woke it up. I don't know why it grabbed you, though. Unless it's being stupid and thinks you're a virgin, too?"

Beau's muddled thoughts couldn't quite cohere in that moment. The disorientation of the magic pulling her up, the soft pressure of Jester's body against hers--fuck, she'd had dreams like this before, lying tangled in Jester's arms. "You can move your arms again," Beau croaked.

"Oh. Oh!" Jester briefly let go of Beau to observe her own arms, then threw them around her again. "I can! Maybe it's letting go of us. Try and sit up!"

Jester pulled Beau up with her. But even though Beau could move her legs and arms, the moment she tried to roll off the side of the altar, she encountered a wall of pulsing warm energy that stopped her progress. "Oh, what the _fuck_ ," Jester said, bumping her shoulder against it. "Now it's like a weird bubble?"

"I was...kind of afraid of this," Beau said, raising one arm and hitting a similar wall of energy about four feet above their heads. "I think--" Oh _fuck,_ was this really happening? "Caleb said the altar harvested the energy of virgins, but the message didn't say _how_. I think--I think it grabbed me because it wants me to be the _how_."

Jester blinked at her for a moment. And _fuck_ , Beau's muddled senses couldn't handle how close the two of them were now: Jester's legs tangled up with hers, Jester's cute freckled face so close that Beau could feel her breath. Beau had been nursing just the _tiniest_ crush on her, nothing too crazy, but this sudden proximity was like adding oxygen to fire, until the thought of Jester was like an inferno in her head.

"Oh," Jester said. Her voice had gone a little high-pitched again. "Um..."

And it suddenly seemed imperative that Beau _not_ be looking at her anymore, because she had seriously just said out loud _I think this magic altar wants me to take your virginity._ Beau flipped over onto her side, facing the outside of the chamber, where the stone walls were still lit eerily green. She squeezed her eyes shut. "But that's, uh, obviously not what's going to happen," she said. "So we'll just wait for Caleb's spell to get us out of here, like we said."

"Oh," Jester said. "Okay."

The two of them lapsed into silence, and Beau focused on her breathing, trying to untangle her thoughts. "I'm sorry I kicked the altar," Jester said after a while, penitence in her tone. "I really didn't think it would do anything."

"That's okay," Beau said. "I'm sorry I grabbed you. I should've known better, it was just kinda...instinct."

"That's okay."

Another minute passed. Beau could feel Jester shifting a little behind her, trying to find a comfortable perch in the enclosed space. "Um," Jester said. "Are you mad at me?"

Beau opened her eyes. "No," she said, craning her neck to look behind her. "No, Jester, of course not."

"Okay," Jester said. "Um, it's just that you're not looking at me, or saying anything, and this was basically all my fault, basically, and so I couldn't tell if maybe you were mad at me, or--"

To Beau's dismay, she could hear the rising pitch of Jester's voice swinging dangerously close to tears. "No, Jess, really," she said, and she flipped back onto her other side. And in the glowing green light she could _see_ the tears starting to fall from Jester's eyes, and without a moment of conscious thought Beau reached out and took Jester's face in her hands, swiping away the tears with her thumbs. "I swear I'm not mad," she said.

Jester made a little hiccupy sound. "Why did you stop looking at me, then?"

"Because I was embarrassed," Beau said. "I'm still embarrassed, honestly."

Jester's hands crept up and clutched at Beau's wrists. It made Beau's heart do another fluttering flip in her chest, because Jester had never really touched her like that before, the grip of her hands both fervent and tender. "Why are you embarrassed?" Jester said.

Beau let out a burble of laughter. "Because we're in a fucking _sex bubble_ together, and I'm pretty sure some dead pervert wizard is hoping we'll fuck," she said. "That's a _weird fucking thing_ to be happening when I'm lying next to my best friend."

Jester's eyes glimmered in the green light, and the sides of her lips ticked up a little. "I'm your best friend?"

"Of course you are," Beau said. She thumbed away a few more of Jester's tears. "Ride or die, right? And I didn't want you to be uncomfortable."

"I wasn't uncomfortable," Jester said. She let go of Beau's wrists and scooted forward on the pedestal, wrapping her arms around Beau again in a hug. And this time Beau just breathed, and hugged her back, and made herself lie there in the middle of that mess of emotions: relief, and affection, and desire, and _guilt_. From this close Jester smelled like lavender perfume, and Beau tucked her face into the crook of Jester's neck and breathed it in, just existing in it, for as long as Jester would let her.

"Um," Jester said. "Beau?"

"Yeah?"

She felt the trace of Jester's fingernail against her back. "I might be, kind of, sort of, maybe a _little_ bit of a virgin," Jester said.

Beau almost laughed, but she caught herself just in time. "Yeah?" she said. "It's okay if you are, you know. There's nothing wrong with it."

"Well..." She heard the discordant note in Jester's voice. "I didn't really _mean_ to be, you know? It's just that there was never anybody around, in Nicodranas. And then when I met you all, I thought maybe Fjord would be..." She sighed. "But I don't know, anymore."

"It's not like there's any rush," Beau said. "You're a romantic, Jess, you know? You can wait until you've met the perfect person. Then when it happens, you'll know it really meant something."

"But how am I supposed to know who the perfect person is?" Jester asked. "People are never like how they are in books. In books you can always tell who's meant for each other. Real life is so stupid."

Now Beau couldn't hold back her laugh, her breath huffing against Jester's shoulder. "Beau," Jester said, a little annoyed. "Don't laugh at me."

"No, it's just--you're right," Beau said. "Real life _is_ stupid, and complicated, and confusing. So you're probably just going to have to pick someone you like and...see if it works."

She felt Jester's fingernail trace an idle path along her back again. "Well," Jester said, her voice high but soft. "I like you."

Beau froze. Jester must've felt the sudden tension in her body, but she didn't let go: she hugged Beau even tighter. "You don't like me...like that, though," Beau said.

"Well," Jester said, softer, a little uncertain. "I don't know."

Beau's head was starting to spin again, fast and dizzy with sudden, stolen hope. But she made herself breathe, and exist there in the middle of it, concentrating on the path of Jester's fingernail as it traced along the back of her shoulder. "I don't really know what I like," Jester said. "Every time I think I do, it feels like I get it wrong. But I like you. You're my best friend."

Beau nodded faintly into Jester's shoulder. "Maybe we could try it?" Jester said.

"Try what?"

"Having sex."

And just like that, it was impossible to exist peacefully and monkishly in the center of her own emotions: Beau pulled back a little and stared at Jester. "Wait, are you serious?"

"Yeah," Jester said, and maybe pulling back to look at her was a mistake, because now her cute freckled face was close to Beau's again, and her plush blue lips were _right there_ , and her arms were still around Beau even though she could've dropped them when Beau pulled away. "I mean, I know you don't like the idea of some stupid wizard making us do it, but if we're already stuck in here, maybe we could just...try it and see how it goes, yeah?"

Something in Beau's brain was stalling out. This couldn't _possibly_ be happening. "I mean," Beau said. "You really don't have to, Jess."

She saw a flicker of annoyance pass over Jester's face. "Beau," she said, a little flatly. "Can we have sex or not?"

Oh. Well, when she put it like that--"Okay," Beau said.

Instantly Jester's expression lightened again, her lips pulling up into a smile. For a few seconds neither of them moved. "Well, you're going to have to show me," Jester said finally. "I've never done any of it before."

 _Oh_. So Beau leaned in, and just like that, as easy as anything, Jester's lips were pressed against hers. It was an eagerly uncertain kiss, Jester's lips searching for but not quite catching the right angle, and Beau tucked her hand against Jester's cheek and guided her lips home. And for a second it was perfect--so perfect that Jester broke the kiss with a giggle and pulled back, looking proud. "Oh, that was so nice!" she exclaimed. "We're both really good at this!"

"Yeah?" Beau said, almost laughing. "Should we keep doing it?"

"Oh, definitely, definitely!"

And then Jester's hand was cupped against Beau's cheek, and her soft breasts were pressed tight against Beau's chest, and Beau was light-headed and dying inside, because it was _fucked up_ that some asshole wizard had made a creepy sex altar, and they really shouldn't be rewarding that kind of fucked-up-ness _at all_ , but Jester was enthusiastically trying to shove her tongue into Beau's mouth and then stopping to laugh, and it was so, so, so fucking _great--_

Well, fuck that asshole wizard, he was dead anyway.

So Beau guided Jester through the finer art of tongue kissing, and when Jester said, with a hint of petulance, "Aren't you going to touch me?", Beau did: pushing her hand up under Jester's skirts and touching her there, fingers skimming along her heat and wetness with careful reverence. Jester's hips bucked hard against her hand. "Why are you doing it so soft?" Jester demanded. "Aren't you going to stick your fingers up in there?"

Beau bit back another laugh. "I thought I was the one with all the experience here."

"I mean, I _know_ ," Jester said, still pushing her hips bossily up against Beau's hand. "But I really want you to do it, so--"

So Beau slid a finger inside Jester, and drank in the full-body shudder that shook Jester in her arms, and was only faintly aware of the sudden increase of light in the room: the small inset emeralds in the altar were beginning to gleam with their own internal radiance. "Yes, see, I like this a lot," Jester said, sucking a kiss against Beau's neck, rocking her hips back and forth against Beau's stroking finger. "Beau, this was a really good idea, actually, and I think it would be even better with another finger, actually, so do you think we could try it? Beau?"

And after that it only took a minute more: their bodies pressed close, their lips clasping hungrily, two of Beau's fingers thrusting hard into Jester's clenching heat. Jester ground herself against the heel of Beau's palm and came with a gasp, sudden and unexpected, and two things happened simultaneously. The fist-sized emerald at the top of the altar suddenly flared with blinding light--

\--and the restraining energy keeping them trapped on the altar abruptly vanished. Beau lost her balance and almost tipped off, and Jester threw out her arms and hauled her back, hugging Beau close in the center of the pedestal. "Oh shit," Jester breathed, her chest heaving against Beau's. "Caleb was totally right about that message, wasn't he? The stupid thing really did want us to have sex."

"Yeah," Beau said, trying to lift herself up so her weight wasn't crushing Jester. But Jester wouldn't let go of her, and after a second Beau stopped worrying about it and just tucked her head back into the crook of Jester's neck. "Uh, I think Caleb said the altar used the energy to do something...dangerous but non-specific."

"Well," Jester said doubtfully. "The wizard's dead, though, right? So it probably won't do anything."

But just as she said it, on the other side of the chamber, Beau heard a strange rumbling noise coming from deep within the ruins beyond the door. The two of them sat up just as Caleb's voice popped abruptly into Beau's head.

"Something is moving out here!" he hissed. "What the hell did you just do?"

Beau looked over at Jester. The guilt on her cute freckled face was undercut by the sly way she was biting her lip.

"We, uh, got bored," Beau said.


End file.
